


This is How the War Ends

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-03
Updated: 2010-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-14 12:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end is the beginning is the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is How the War Ends

  
The last thing Sam remembers is sound, sound and fury and Dean screaming his name. Before the warehouse crashes down around them - crashes down on top of them.

He's fairly sure that it hurts. Sam's died a few times over the years and most of them have hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. It's a long drop from life to death, and this is louder and fiercer than most. But he doesn't remember it, he doesn't remember the moment that he dies this time.

The only thing he knows is that he's sat in a cornfield, dirt warm under his jeans. He's staring off into the distance, across endless rows of warm, yellow corn.

Being dead is definitely different this time.

Sam's not alone for one thing.

Dean's sat next to him, and he's laughing, wrists thrown over his knees, head tilted up to the sky and he's laughing into the wind. He's drawing in great lungfuls of air and laughing it out like he's finding the whole thing hilarious. Sam hasn't heard him laugh like that for years.

Sam stares at him for a second in utter bewilderment. Because he doesn't understand - but then he's laughing too, staring off into the corn and laughing in a helpless sort of way because why should anything start making sense now. They're all the way past sense and into something else entirely.

For the first time they're not going to fight.

They'd gone out together.

They've never done that before.

It seems fair.

It seems right.

Forty five years old was good, forty five was better than Sam had ever expected. They both knew there'd be no long slide into old age, surrounded by books for either of them. Neither of them had been Bobby. They'd always known.

They'd had a _lifetime._

A lifetime to save people.

Dean's laughter trails off in a sigh and then there's nothing but the wind.

"We're not gonna fight this, are we?" Sam asks, though he already knows the answer.

Dean turns his head to look at him.

"I think we already used up all our cards, Sam."

Sam nods. "Not just ours."

"Not just ours," Dean agrees.

Sam's jeans still feel real under his fingers. The dirt feels like dirt. Dean always has said he's too obsessed with the questions. Too obsessed with wanting to know how and why. That sometimes he should just accept things as they are.

"It was good, most of it was good," Sam says carefully. "We were ok."

"We were fantastic," Dean corrects and Sam's startled into laughter that ends on a break and a swallow - something sharp and relieved.

The sound of feathers is loud, drowning out the wind and then they're both looking up at an angel.

Castiel's smile is exactly the same, even after almost twenty years of wearing the same face.

Dean squints up at him.

"This place is nicer than the last time we visited," he remarks. "Not quite floaty clouds and harps but close enough."

Castiel's smile widens. "I'm glad you approve."

"Are you here to offer condolences on our death?"

Castiel smile goes crooked.

"Condolences," he says, and Dean laughs like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard.

Dean smacks his hands together. "So what happens now then? Are there forms? Do we need to fill in forms?"

Sam laughs despite himself.

"There'll be no paperwork, I promise," Castiel reassures him, and then holds a hand down.

Dean lifts his own and grips it, pulls himself to his feet - then keeps going until Castiel is caught up in an awkward, one-armed hug. Sam watches the angel close his eyes and sink into it.

Sam brushes his knees off, sets his hands down, ready to push himself to his feet.

"You have to wait here, Sam," Castiel says quietly.

"What?" Dean turns, expression uncertain. "Cas."

"You'll seen him again soon," Castiel says. "He needs to stay here, just for a while."

Sam frowns, because after all this, after everything, he doesn't want to be alone.

"It'll be alright," Castiel says with a nod, and Sam believes him. He has no choice but to believe him.

Dean waits, reluctant, Castiel doesn't pull him.

Sam eventually nods.

His brother drifts off through the corn, looking back every few steps but moving, always moving away. It isn't very long before Sam can't see him or Castiel any more.

He doesn't know how long he sits staring at the swaying corn. But he doesn't think it's long. No, it's not long at all before someone sits down beside him. Weight on the dirt next to him, a scrape of heavy work boots across the ground.

Sam doesn't know who he was expecting.

But it wasn't him.

"Hello, Sam," Lucifer says.

Sam's often wondered what he'd do if he heard that voice again. If he'd be afraid, stop breathing, run, fight - fall again.

Instead he exhales like he's been waiting for exactly this, waiting years for this.

He turns his head.

Lucifer looks exactly the same. Sam remembers his face, remembers his eyes. He remembers everything, even though it was half a lifetime ago. Everything was always so sharp and so furious with him. Lucifer was a fire that burned everything in his path.

"I thought you were -" Sam swallows and tries again "I thought you were locked up."

"Not today," Lucifer says simply. Or perhaps it's not that simple, because there's a sadness, a quiet tension to his face.

"I -" Sam can't say it, can't admit to it. But that's stupid, isn't it? So damn stupid. He shakes his head. Because he's still thinking like any of this matters. Nothing matters now. This is the end, the very end. "I missed you," he says quietly.

Lucifer makes a noise and his eyes fall shut, like he never expected anything like that.

"I missed you," Sam says again and the admission leaves him completely unashamed. It seems like on the outskirts of heaven you could admit pretty much anything. As long as it was the truth.

"I'm sorry," Lucifer says quietly, it's strange and thick in his mouth.

Sam doesn't think Lucifer has used the words and meant them for a long time.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't be what you wanted. I've been broken for a very long time."

"You're not broken," Sam insists though he knows it's probably not true.

There's a long moment of quiet.

"We were all broken," Sam admits finally. "We were what we were supposed to be. We all wanted things, we used people. I used you."

"I used you first, though I never meant to."

The wind throws Sam's hair everywhere, and it smells like the countryside. It's strange and distracting, that heaven could smell like _things._

"You'll have to go soon. To a place where I can't go, a place I'm not allowed any more," Lucifer says quietly.

Sam stares into the corn

"We won't see each other again." There's a quiet flatness to Lucifer's voice, covering so many other things.

Sam expected almost exactly that but it's still a sharp and unexpected pain, somewhere deep inside. A tug of vertigo and denial.

"That's -"

"The way it has to be," Lucifer finishes.

"No," Sam says stubbornly.

"Yes," Lucifer says simply, easily, as if this is something there is no fighting. This is something that was decided too long ago.

Sam's shifting in the dirt, sliding round and frowning.

"That's not fair."

"The universe wouldn't work if it was fair, Sam." Lucifer sounds sad and amused at the same time. He turns his head and smiles at him. Smiles in a way that says he fully intends to take every second of this and make it last a lifetime. A thousand lifetimes.

Sam shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't," Lucifer says. "I wouldn't have missed this -"

"Shut up," Sam says, because he hasn't kissed Lucifer for almost twenty years and he can't do it anywhere if he can't do it here. He pulls with a hand, finds the softness of his shirt and the roughness of his jawline and leans over and kisses him. It's exactly the same as he remembers and he's not prepared for it at all. Lucifer's hands close tightly on his arms, so tight Sam can feel them, even though he's supposed to be dead. Even though he's not supposed to feel at all.

Lucifer's mouth falls away. "I don't think I can do this. I can't do this and then let you go." The words mean nothing though, because Lucifer's hands are already crawling under Sam's shirt, cold against his skin and they're kissing again, sliding down until Sam has the earth under his elbows and the devil's weight on his body and the sky is a million shades of blue and orange and silver. But Lucifer doesn't see it, can't see it and Sam thinks he should. Thinks he should have that at least.

He shifts, rolls and presses him back into the dirt. Sam ends up straddling him, awkward and heavy and strangely intimate, and he doesn't understand how he can feel so much of this. How he can feel muscle moving under cloth in a way that's human and alive. Everything immediate, the rush of the corn loud enough to drown out Lucifer's sigh when Sam digs both hands in his hair and drags his head back and kisses him.

"Lucifer," he growls out. Hands catch his waist and pull and the devil is so strong, stronger than anything Sam's ever known, anything he's ever faced.

"What do you want from me?" Lucifer demands. Sam knows that if it's in his power he'll give it without question. This one last time.

Everything, Sam thinks. But he shakes his head instead of saying it. Because there's no way to explain all the things he wants, and there isn't enough time. There was never enough time for them. They were always on opposite sides. Made for each other and made to destroy each other. Now come full circle.

"You, just you." Sam pulls at the shirt, strips it over Lucifer's head and then drops his hands to tug aggressively, assertively at the button on his jeans. The place they're heading, impossible to stop.

Sam says 'please' and the dirt is so much warmer than it should be under his bare back. It's warm enough to burn everywhere his body touches. They've never done this, never come together like this, all skin and weight and blood. Lucifer's been underneath his bones and twisted round his soul but he's never been inside him like this. All rough scrape of feet in the dirt, wrap of heavy legs around his waist and slow rolling pushes to get deeper. It's everything it should be, hot and uncomfortable and messy and a thousand times more real than Sam can bear. It leaves him breathless and exhausted and shivering and gasping with something that feels just as much like grief as it does like bliss.

This is the first, last, and only time.

Sam can't bear it.

They stay tangled together in the silence.

The sky is a warm orange-red and it's so strange Sam can't look at it any more. He shuts his eyes.

"I love you," Lucifer says quietly. It's barely more than an exhale, and Sam's throat is closed up tight. Because he can't love him back - he can't love him and then never see him again. He's not strong enough for that.

Everything they were together, everything they believed. Everything that Sam had been ashamed of. If they hadn't been doomed to destroy each other because history said they should, then they could have been -

"We could have been glorious," Lucifer finishes, and it's deep and warm against his cheek, hair rasping over Sam's skin.

There's an odd sort of silence, the wind dropping to nothing and Sam knows someone is watching him.

When he opens his eyes he's dressed again.

Standing at the very edge of the corn is a figure he recognises.

Chuck, Sam thinks.

 _No_ , his brain tells him quietly.

"It's time to go, Sam," Chuck says.

Lucifer's hand tightens briefly on his skin and then slides free. He draws away, sets himself apart, and Sam's reaching fingers find nothing but dirt.

"What -" he starts. But his word dies away to nothing. How the hell were you supposed to argue with God?

Sam makes his way to his feet.

Lucifer's not looking at anything any more, he's staring back the way they hadn't come, shoulders stiff with something too painful to look at.

Sam doesn't want to leave him.

"Sometimes," Chuck says quietly. "It takes us a long time to learn the important lessons."

Lucifer is very still.

Chuck nods. "I think you've both learned them."

Both

 _Both_

Sam dares to dream. He grasps Lucifer's hand and pulls him to his feet.

Lucifer's staring at Chuck as if he doesn't know him, and Chuck's head is tilted to one side, expression stranger than Sam knows what to do with.

Then Chuck nods once more and heads out into the corn field.

Lucifer exhales like there's nothing else in him at all.

Sam tightens his grip, makes sure the devil can't slip free, and then heads into the rows.

He takes Lucifer home.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] This Is How the War Ends / written by entanglednow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/381276) by [EosRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EosRose/pseuds/EosRose)




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